Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, a method, and a computer-readable storage device which are suitable for a bulb photographing and a composite photographing.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, portable apparatuses (image pickup apparatuses) with photographing function such as a digital camera have been come into wide use. In such a type of image pickup apparatus, there is an apparatus which includes a display unit and functions to display a photographed image. Furthermore, there is also an apparatus which displays a menu screen in the display unit to help the operation of the image pickup apparatus.
In the image pickup apparatus, there is an apparatus having a bulb photographing function in which the exposure is performed during a period when a shutter button is pushed or between an operation and an operation. With the use of the bulb photographing function, the starry sky or the night sky can be effectively photographed. Furthermore, there is also a commercialized image pickup apparatus having a live bulb function in which not only the finally obtained image but also an image changing during the exposure can be displayed at the time of the bulb photographing.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2014-239299 A discloses an apparatus which achieves the live bulb function using an image pickup element performing a destructive reading. In the apparatus of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2014-239299 A, the exposure and the reading are repeatedly performed plural times, and image signals obtained in each reading are integrated to obtain an image at every predetermined exposure time in the bulb photographing. In such a live bulb function, the user can confirm timing to stop the bulb photographing while viewing the displayed image.
In addition, there is developed an image pickup apparatus having a composite photographing function in which an object is repeatedly photographed to obtain a series of images and a comparison light composition is performed to determine a combining portion according to the feature of a series of images thus obtained so as to obtain the same effect as that of the bulb photographing.